U.S. BecomIng A Third-World Country Part 63

The U.S. legal and political system used to be a model that the rest of the world looked up to, but this isn't the case any longer. Mostly, Republicans are to blame for the decline.

Overall, the U.S. score in the Rule of Law Index declined by 2.9 percent, more than any other country in the Western Europe and North America region, and more than any other high-income country. Its global ranking fell by two, putting it at 27th out of 139 countries, just behind Portugal, Uruguay, and Latvia.

The U.S. scores fell in every factor except regulatory enforcement, with the most significant deterioration in the measures of constraints on government powers, absence of corruption, open government, fundamental rights, and criminal justice. The data . . . reflect the deepening of multi-year negative trends as well as certain longstanding systemic weaknesses, all of which will require a concerted effort to reverse.

The Index score measuring constraints on government powers, for example, captures issues such as checks on executive authority by the legislature, judiciary, independent auditing bodies, non-governmental actors, and the like. The last time the United States saw improvement in this score was between 2015 and 2016. Since 2016, in the period corresponding to the Trump administration, the U.S. score on constraints on government powers fell 16 percent, with double-digit declines in each of the indicators that make up that score, including legislative checks on government powers (-16%), judicial checks on government powers (-17%), checks from independent auditing and review (-21%), non-governmental checks (-16%), and sanctions of government officials for misconduct (-14%). Over the same period, the U.S. score on respect for fundamental rights fell 11 percent, giving it a ranking of 42nd out of 139 countries on that factor in the 2021 study.

Beyond these contemporary rule of law challenges, the United States suffers from historic weaknesses with respect to equal treatment in the justice system. This year the United States ranks 122nd out of 139 countries in the indicator measuring discrimination in the civil justice system and 111th out of 139 for impartiality of its criminal justice system.

From here.